Yesterday morning, we took 21, six pound Cornish X Rock broilers to Dine’s Farm for professional processing and picked them up later in the afternoon. They were all cleaned, bagged and weighed....ready for the refrigerator, where they will rest for two days and then be frozen. The turkeys will never be ready for Thanksgiving Day, let alone Christmas, but we learned our lesson this year and will not make the mistake of waiting so long next season. All we were able to get in August were Heritage turkeys...which are slow growing. No one wants to deal with turkey shipments in the heat of summer. Next year we will order our broad breasted bronze turkeys in June and go from there, or find another breed which is a good meat bird. The good news is that the Heritage breed is good for keeping here and will lay eggs and breed, giving us future birds for free.
The weather is finally turning and we are looking forward to getting back to work. Two things that don’t go together are definitely the Lyme’s affliction aftermath and heat. I don’t do well with either and the two combined are unbearable.
Joe the Pekin duck that was brutally attacked by the basketball sized snapping turtle is doing much better and soon the bandage will be coming off. He seems to walk on it, but had a nasty cut the entire length of his right foot, with the worst area being the meaty part, on the underside of the webbed foot, right at the bottom of the leg, where the foot pad and web branches out. The turtle had torn that section pretty badly and the bleeding continued for over an hour...AFTER I got the turtle to release the duck. There was massive clouds of blood in the water and I feared the duck was already in shock by the way it was acting in the water, but as soon as I got the turtle to release him, he took off like an Olympic swimmer, heading for the finish line and popped right up and out of the pond in record time. Vick and Lynda finally caught him and went to work on the bleeding with blood stop compound, peroxide, disinfectants and gauze with pressure bandages. After an hour of doctoring, the bleeding was stopped and hasn’t really bled since. Another SAVED CRITTER here on the farm thanks to Vick the nurse!!
Today I am going work on cleaning the small barns and brooding house....and then I will sink some posts in the ongoing project of fencing the property where the animals live and browse regularly. We will soon concentrate on poking holes and installing sauna tubes for the farm store too, but I have to make a concrete pad for the standby generator we ordered the other day. The next time we lose power may be in the dead of winter with three feet of snow on the ground and this generator will give us heat, refrigeration, lights and water...Just knowing we will have lights, heat lamps where needed and water for the animals in the barns is a comforting thought for the winter. Who can chop holes in the ice and wade three feet of snow to feed and water animals without power? I’m too old for those worries anymore. If my tractor won’t start, I can heat it up with my portable propane heater and use the battery charger as long as I have power. We have adopted pre-planning since being caught with our pants down during the hurricane.
042762Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC
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